On July 15, 1966, The Yardbirds released their 3rd studio LP. It was know by dif…

On July 15, 1966, The Yardbirds released their 3rd studio LP. It was know by different names. In the UK, the title was officially “Yardbirds”, but is better known as “Roger the Engineer”. In the U.S, France and Germany, it was called “Over, Under, Sideways Down”.

The UK album had a drawing by Chris Dreja of Roger Cameron, who was the engineer for the album. The U.S. Cover showed the band members in different positions and the French / German cover had the band standing on a street. It was produced by bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and Simon Napier-Bell. It was the only Yardbirds album with all original material.

In 2012, the album was ranked #349 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

All the songs were written by Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty, Jeff Beck, Keith Relf, and Paul Samwell-Smith. On the U.S. release, Dreja and McCarty’s last names were misspelled as “Drega” and “McCarthy”.

The original American versions of this album omitted the songs “The Nazz Are Blue” (which was sung by Jeff Beck) and “Rack My Mind” and are mixed differently from the British editions. Regardless, record collectors have sought out both the mono (LN 24210) and stereo (BN 26210) versions since several tracks are featured with slight differences in the mixes.

In 1983, Epic Records reissued the album, simply entitled The Yardbirds, and featured the original UK album cover, the two missing tracks, duplication of the British mixing, and two additional tracks, the 1966 single “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” b/w “Psycho Daisies”, both featuring Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.